Dream a Little Dream for Me

Dreams may be a last refuge of hope and comfort when life presents us with a nightmare. A good example is this story by Pat Cook of Leavittsburg, Ohio, which was featured in a Guideposts e-letter. Click here to sign up for Guideposts‘ free Mysterious Ways newsletter. You’ll also be able to download a free e-book, Mysterious Ways: 9 Inspiring Stories That Show Evidence of God’s Love and God’s Grace.

A DREAM COME TRUE
When my daughter was hospitalized with a head injury, I prayed for a sign she’d be well again

Sleep is supposed to release you from your worries, your worst fears. Yet as much as I wanted and needed sleep, I doubted it would ease me. My 12-year-old daughter, June, had just emerged from a coma. Now the doctors were telling my husband and me that she’d need a series of brain surgeries if she were to survive.

Lying in bed, wrung out after another long day sitting at her bedside in the hospital, my mind replayed the horrific accident. One moment, June was riding on the

Snow Tow

Some stories are so unbelievable that they strain credulity. The following story, which was featured in a Guideposts e-letter, is bound to raise an eyebrow or two. Yet, with all I’ve learned and experienced, I believe anything is possible. Frankly, I hope it is true, because I love what it represents. The storyteller is Claudia Scott from Carlsbad, California, just up the road a few miles from me.

Click here to sign up for Guideposts‘ free Mysterious Ways newsletter. You’ll also be able to download a free e-book, Mysterious Ways: 9 Inspiring Stories That Show Evidence of God’s Love and God’s Grace.

THE SNOW MAN
When the snow forced us off the road, I didn’t know how I’d get my two babies home. Until a mysterious stranger pulled up

The snow often fell hard and heavy during the winters I lived in Colorado. It was coming down like crazy one afternoon when my boss closed the office and sent us home. I hurried to my car. I had to stop at the sitter’s house to pick up my two baby boys.

I made it the sitter’s house without too much trouble. “Be careful,” she said, as I strapped Nick, six months old, and Jon, 22 months old, into the backseat of the car.

“You know I will,” I said.

But almost as soon as her house was out of sight,

Lost and Found

One person’s minor loss can lead to someone else finding something of great importance. This story, written by April Grube of Riverside, California, appeared in the August 2010 issue of Guideposts.

CHANCE ENCOUNTER
A young woman on the verge of choosing a college has a life-changing experience that shows evidence of God’s love.

I settled into my seat on the red-eye from L.A. to D.C.—a trip east to tour some college campuses before I had to make the big decision.

The seat next to mine was empty and I couldn’t wait to get some sleep. Then I spotted a big guy maneuvering down the aisle, bumping passengers and apologizing profusely, and I knew—lucky me—I had a seatmate.

Sure enough, he sat next to me and started talking. “Never did like flying, always too hot or cold. And these seats are too small, don’t ya think? But I can’t complain. Lord knows, I’m a blessed man…”

So much for sleep. At least

D Is For Dad

Life has a way of delivering gifts to us at the precise moment we need them most. This story, written by Lorraine Arents of Fresh Meadows, New York, appeared in the June 2010 issue of Guideposts.

A TIMELY RETURN
I thought I lost my father all over again when I lost a keepsake.

It had been more than three months since my purse was snatched from me on a New York City street.

I had long since gotten a new purse and wallet, and replaced my credit cards and driver’s license. But even after all these months, tears still came to my eyes whenever I thought about the one thing that I could never replace: my father’s dog tags from World War II.

I missed Dad so badly, particularly today as I sat at my desk catching up on e-mails from friends.

My father had fought on D-Day, helping

It All Adds Up

We often look for signs after a loved one dies. Here’s a cool story about movies, loose change and girls’ day out. Written by Judy Dill of Blanchester, Ohio, it appeared in the April 2010 issue of Guideposts.

Tom, my second husband, had a deep appreciation for the bond I had with my grown daughter from my first marriage. He loved treating Kris and me to a girls’ day out and got a kick out of the giggle fits we got into when we recounted our day for him. He’d have to join us one day, we said. Shortly after we were married, he was diagnosed with melanoma. The treatments left him too weak to go out with us, but he never stopped exhorting us to have a good time. Two days shy of our second anniversary, he passed away. I felt a part of me had died too, that joy had gone from my life.

A few weeks after the funeral I tried to clean out Tom’s dresser drawers. I thought I could handle it, but I was wrong. These were his favorite shirts, sweaters. Even a drawer full of change he’d emptied from his pockets made my heart ache. I

The Best Seat in the House

Coincidence is simply God’s way of remaining anonymous, as evidenced by this story by Bonnie Kidder of Lafayette, Louisiana, which appeared in the September 2009 issue of Guideposts.

Bonnie Kidder

I almost hadn’t come to the class at church that night. With four kids and a full-time teaching job, I had plenty to do.

But my 11-year-old son, Brady, was having surgery the next day. I hated to think of him alone in the operating room. I’d been praying for weeks, asking God to be with Brady and his doctors during surgery, but it didn’t feel like enough.

Standing in the doorway of the church hall I couldn’t believe

Love Just Keeps On Trucking

I love hearing about “impossible coincidences,” like this story by Lana Smith of Clarksville, Tennessee, which appeared in the June 2009 issue of Guideposts. 

On the eve of my wedding day, one worry nagged me. Steve and I came from different backgrounds—I was a city girl from Scottsdale, Arizona. He was born in Oklahoma and grew up in Kansas. My dad was a trucker, his was a minister—but the boy who bothered me in freshman biology class at McPherson College in Kansas quickly won my heart. He proposed senior year, and we decided to marry at the college church two days after graduation. My parents and Steve’s would drive in to celebrate. Living so far from one another, our parents had never met. And my parents weren’t that outgoing. Would they get along?

At the rehearsal dinner, I saw Steve’s parents looking curiously at my dad. “Don’t worry, Lana, they

Moonlight Becomes You So . . .

From the website of Stephen Charles Long

This wonderful story by Nancy Portz of Claverack, New York, appeared in the March 2009 issue of Guideposts. It’s difficult enough to explain away the first “coincidence,” much less the second. But I defy anyone to read the final sentence and try to convince me that this is anything other than what it clearly is: contact.

I could clearly remember those wonderful childhood days, even as my aging father’s power of memory faded—happy days growing up with my four brothers and three sisters in that big rambling house we loved so much at 244 Robinson Street.

Who could forget those giddy, lively family dinners when all 10 of us would crowd in around the table at dinnertime, times when Mom and Dad were known to spontaneously burst into song? “Moonlight becomes you so…” my dad would croon to Mom, doing his best Bing Crosby impression for us.

During the last five years of his life,

The Pelican Grief

I was touched by this story by Lynne Cox of Los Alamitos, California, which appeared in the August 2007 issue of Guideposts. Here is her abridged account of helping a bird in distress . . . and the astonishing resolution that is nothing short of  a celebration of spirit.

Through my goggles I could just barely make out my friend Louise in the predawn darkness, swimming through the ocean swells a couple feet ahead of me. Keep it up, Louise. I was training her to swim the nearly 27-mile distance from Catalina Island to the California mainland, a swim I first accomplished at age 14, and today was our longest workout—15 miles from the Malibu pier to the Santa Monica pier.